The news

So what? The liberals have Olberman, one show, compared to many, many conservative shows. The fact of the matter is that they all suck an emo midget's ass, and intelligent people realise that.

The "news" never actually delves into substantive issues of policy. Ever. They report the compaigns and elections like a fucking horse race. "The latest polls say that- blah blah blah." Who gives a flying fuck? They have proven time and time again that their exit polls on ELECTION DAY dont mean a damn thing. Why would you care what they say 3 months in advance. And contrary to what they claim, calling 400 people in a nation of over 300 million is not "scientific."

They only report the campaigns as a sort of "how will this play with the middle class white voter, or the inner city african american." That is so fucking stupid. They give you a one sentence explanation of a complex policy and then try to tell people of various constiuencies what they should think about it.

The only way they ever cover actual issues is in four minute segments which are little more than an opportunity to exchange 5 second sound bytes. And bullshit statistics.

However, statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is intreaguing, but what they conceal is vital.

You can come up with a statistic to prove any point, but if you choose the wrong statistic, or one that doesnt grasp the full complexity of a situation, you are just bullshitting. For an example (just an example, I dont want this to be a discussion on global warming) I have often heard conservatives say that global warming is a myth and cite the statistic that the hottest year on record was.... (i forget the exact year, but it was in the 1930's, during the dust bowl) This is not true. That was the hottest year on record in the US. The hottest record on record in the world is getting revised almost every year. Parts of Asia are now consistantly running 8 degrees above "average." So to cite stats for only the US in GLOBAL warming debates leads to false assertions.

The logical question is where do we go from here? The news has obviously become little more than propaganda. Our journalists and politicians have failed us. McCain has suggested weekly town hall meetings. I hate this idea. Political operatives of both the democrat and republican parties have proved amazingly adept at planting questions in this type of forum. The debates as they are only breed sound bytes.

My solution is this. A series of debates. They last two hours each. At the beginning of the first debate, a coin is flipped to see who asks first. At the next debate, the other candidate asks first. The candidate who wins the coin toss asks his opponent a question. The opponent has 5 minutes to answer. The asker has 5 minutes after that, and the opponent gets 3 minutes after that. Then the opponent asks a question. In this way, you have the two candidates challenging each other, and neither side is able to prepare canned answers for questions like they can when they know almost exactly what the media moderator will ask, or when they are planting questions in town hall meetings. If a difference is discovered in the course of an answer and response, one candidate can make that difference the source of another question. This format would greatly aid in the intelligence of the discourse of American politics